The 120-pound grappler scored an escape with 2.6 seconds left in double-overtime against Dean Technical High School’s Chris Vega to snap a 1-1 tie but as he turned his back in celebration, Vega quickly scored a takedown to earn a 3-2 victory and the Hawks went on to register a 44-28 victory in what amounted to the Tri-County League championship match.

The two teams entered the bout with unblemished 3-0 records and were the two league favorites. The Eagles began the night by feting four seniors — Cody Brunelle, Curtis Geary, Jordan Valego and Lacosse — for Senior Night, but it wound up being the only thing the team celebrated.

The match began at 106 pounds and the Hawks jumped all over the Eagles early. Dean Tech’s David Rodriguez scored a first-period pin over Franklin’s Pat Lashway, and Luis Robles followed that up with a 10-3 victory over Tyler Rock at 113 pounds to give Dean the early 9-0 lead. That brought up Lacosse against David Brozeau and it became the match of the night. Lacosse earned an escape in the second period to take a 1-0 lead following a first period that saw neither wrestler score a takedown. The bout remained at 1-0 deep into the third period but Brozeau earned an escape with 34 seconds left to tie things up and send the match into overtime. The first overtime was sudden-death but the one minute went by with neither scoring a takedown, so it moved to a second OT, which consists of two 30-second periods, with each wrestler getting to choose a start position. Brozeau chose to be in the down position first, and he tried to score an escape, but Lacosse held firm and the match moved to the second half of the second overtime. Lacosse also chose down and made good on it when he managed to get up and free of Brozeau’s hold with 2.6 seconds remaining. Once free, Lacosse moved away from Brozeau and appeared to be celebrating, but the Dean Tech wrestler bull rushed him and took Lacosse down without the Franklin Tech wrestler knowing what hit him. The two points for the takedown gave Brozeau a 3-2 win and Dean led 12-0.

Dean Tech’s Chris Vega followed that up with a third-period pin over Cody Brunelle at 126, and Darrien Calderon continued the early onslaught with a 12-4 victory over Brett Bean at 132 for a 22-0 Dean Tech advantage.

David Weed scored the first points of the night for the Eagles with a first-period pin over Mike McAndrew at 138, but Carlos Santiago got some of those points back at 145 with his 16-7 win over Gabe Stafford. Kyle Laffey came back for the Eagles with a first-period pin over Nick Rodriguez at 152, but Justin Perez earned a pin over Tim Momaney at 160 to put Dean Tech up 32-12. Caleb Baranoski scored four points for the Eagles at 170 with an 8-0 victory over Joseph Tosado, but Geovanni Ventura sealed the Dean Tech victory with a pin over Gabe Vorce at 182. That put Dean Tech up 38-16 with three bouts to go and left the Eagles unable to win. Tyler Peters earned a win for the Eagles at 195 when he scored a pin over Luis Castro after he had been trailing at the time. Alec Milton added the final points of the night for the hosts with a first-period pin at 220 against Phillip Fernandez. Brian Wodecki pinned Jonathan Rawls in the heavyweight bout for the final Dean Tech points of the night.